


Get Thee to a Nunnery

by MrProphet



Category: Hellboy - All Media Types
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-04-23
Updated: 2017-04-23
Packaged: 2018-10-22 23:48:28
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,268
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10707693
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MrProphet/pseuds/MrProphet





	Get Thee to a Nunnery

The Orphanage of St Clement in County Waterford was an isolated place, housing two dozen girls between the ages of three and fifteen and tended by a small community of Benedictine nuns. For many years it had been a place of peace, but in May of 1984 there began a terrible affliction.

On May 2nd, the youngest of the sisters, Sister Mary Anne, was found in a coma outside the teenagers’ dormitory with a terrible trauma to the side of her head. She lay in a coma until long after the dark business was concluded. The next day, iron bars were set over each dormitory window; this did not do any good.

On May 3rd Catherine O’Hara, at fifteen the oldest of the resident orphans, was taken from her bed. Her bedclothes trailed across the room as though she had dragged them in her wake as she was abducted and the wood of the window frame was gouged by her fingernails. There had clearly been a great struggle, yet none of her dorm mates had woken.

On May 7th another girl went missing. She was five.

On May 9th, a twelve year old was taken.

On May 12th, a nine year old was taken from her bed, but was found at the foot of the wall beneath her window, her small body broken on the hard ground. Sister Ruth, keeping watch over the dormitory, was found in the girl’s bed with her neck snapped and the covers drawn over her.

It was at this point that the Abbess, Mother Elizabeth, finding that she had encountered a problem that seems to defy all her prayers and mortal efforts, asked her old friend Trevor Bruttenholm for help.

*

Help came on the 13th in the form of Novice Bébinn, a strangely deformed being whose black habit and white wimple covered a hulking form.

“I’m not at all sure what Trevor thinks you can do, but he seemed confident.”

“I do this kind of thing a lot,” Novice Bébinn assured the Abbess.

Mother Elizabeth looked into the alleged Novice Bébinn’s broad, leathery, red-skinned face. “You’re not actually a nun, are you?”

“What gave me away?” Hellboy asked.

The old woman smiled. “Do you think the disguise will fool anyone?”

“Hopefully our kidnapper,” Hellboy replied. “Now, I need you to move all of the girls into a single dormitory.”

“Why?”

“Because I can’t keep watch over three dorms.”

*

For three days Hellboy watched over the nineteen surviving girls with one hand under his habit and his eyes never closing, day or night. And nothing happened.

“I don’t understand why he’s stopped,” he confessed on the 17th.

“Neither do I,” Mother Elizabeth agreed, “but I can’t say I’m sorry.”

“Of course not,” Hellboy said. “I don’t want any of the girls hurt, but I need to face this thing or we’ll never know if it’s stopped for good. If only we knew why it started, or why it took those particular girls.”

Hellboy had a rumbling voice which carried well. Most of the girls in the refectory heard him speaking and a group of them whispered for several minutes before picking Eileen, a plucky girl of eight, to be their spokesperson.

“’Scuse me, Sister,” she said.

Hellboy leaned down to look her in the eye. “Yes, Eileen?”

“We know why he took ‘em.”

Hellboy frowned. “Why?”

“’Cause they was wicked,” Eileen explained. “Mary Anne and Catherine was… well, they was.”

“I understand,” Hellboy assured her. “Not sure as Mother Lizzy does, but never mind. What about the others?”

“Emma stole. Kitty used to bully the little ones. Sue sucked her thumb.”

“Sucked her thumb?” Hellboy roared, causing all of the tables to shake. “That’s not really in the same league,” he whispered.

“No,” Eileen agreed, “but Sister Heloise still said she was wicked. Since then, no-one’s done anything to upset her, so she hasn’t told anyone else that they’re wicked. And no-one else has died.”

Hellboy looked up at Sister Heloise; fierce sister Heloise, aged beyond her years by an excessive zeal for discipline. “How long has she been here?” he asked.

“Years,” Mother Elizabeth told him. “She came to us as a child.”

“Then what  _did_  change? Why did the attacks start  _this_  May Day and not any other? And why has Sister Heloise become the judge of worth?”

“I remember something… That’s right,” Mother Elizabeth said. “Sister Heloise had a sister. She died at the end of April.”

“Right,” Hellboy murmured. “Eileen, can you be brave for me?”

Eileen looked worried, but nodded her head.

“Good girl. I need you to…” He bent close and whispered into Eileen’s ear.

Eileen walked away and, as she walked past Sister Heloise she reached out and calmly tipped the nun’s dinner into her lap.

Sister Heloise leaped up: “You wicked girl!” she accused.

Mother Elizabeth looked at Hellboy in anguish. “What have you done?”

“Baited a trap,” he growled. “Send the girls back to their own dorms tonight. Don’t worry; I’ll keep her safe.”

*

That night, Eileen lay sleeping. Neither she nor any of the other girls saw the hulking form that squeezed between the bars, but Hellboy did.

"Hey, ugly,” he growled. He lifted his left hand and levelled a massive handgun at the figure. “Back away from the kid with any weapons, claws or fangs held up where I can see them.”

The monster rounded on Hellboy. “Ugha-uh!” it grunted and it sprang at him, clawed hands extended.

The gun roared, but the monster hardly flinched. It landed on Hellboy and drove him to the ground. It grappled at his head and tried to twist his neck until it broke, but Hellboy’s neck was a lot harder to snap than a nun’s.

Hellboy pulled his massive, stony-fleshed right hand out of his habit. He slammed his fist into the monster’s head, knocking it back against the wall; the wimple ripped away in tatters.

“Ugha-uh to you too!”

At that point Eileen woke up. She took one look at Hellboy without his habit and screamed. She leaped out of bed and staggered away towards the window… and towards the monster.

“Eileen! No!”

Eileen stopped. “Novice Bébinn?” she gasped. Apparently the disguise had fooled someone after all.

Hellboy lunged towards her, but before he could reach her the monster wrapped an arm around the girl’s shoulders and leaped backwards through the window. It flowed like smoke between the bars, drawing Eileen after it.

“Eileen!” Hellboy roared. Without hesitation, he threw himself at the window and smashed through the bars, sending them spinning off into the night.

Almost half a mile away, he could see the monstrous figure striding across the hillside. He gave chase, driving himself to the limits of his strength, with one thought rolling round and round inside his head: You said you’d keep her safe. You said you’d keep her safe.

*

The monster ran over miles of hill and bog and Hellboy ran after him. He dogged its heels until it reached the rocky coast… and vanished.

“What the hell?” he growled. “Okay, if you can dematerialise altogether, why not do it five miles ago?” he wondered. “Unless…” He took a flashlight from his belt and shone it around. The rocks stretched away on all sides, but there were a number of deep shadows and the third of these that he investigated proved to be a deep cleft running deep into the cliff.

“Of course. You can’t vanish, but you can squeeze through ay gap, damn you. Now, how do I get down there.” Hellboy leaned close. He could hear a distant rumbling and a sharp smell of salt and fish wafted out of the cleft. “Think, Hellboy.” Another rumble rose up.  
“The sea,” he said. “Of course.” He dug in one of the pouches on his belt. “Now, where is it… Ah!”

Hellboy held up a long, barbed spearhead, carved from bone. Brandishing it above his head he strode to the cliff edge. “Hey!” he yelled. “Hey, fishy!” There were ritual words for this sort of thing, but he had never found ritual words all that useful. “Curruid! See this? The head of the Gae Bolga; last bone of your archenemy, the Coinchenn! You want it? Come get it!”

For a moment nothing much seemed to happen, but then the sea seemed to boil. Far out in the waves, a long coil of scaly flesh rose and fell.

”I hope this works,” Hellboy sighed. “If not, I’m really, really sorry Eileen.”

He leaped back to the cleft and threw the spearhead down into the narrow tunnel underneath. With a rush, the Curruid threw its coils against the cliff face, tearing at the rocks to reach the buried artefact. The cliff broke open beneath this terrible onslaught, tonnes of rock falling away into the sea. The ground opened up under Hellboy’s feet and he slipped down into darkness.

“Ah, crap,” he muttered.

*

Consciousness returned and brought a little pain along to visit. Hellboy wasn’t sure, but he thought that one of his arms might be broken. He flexed them both and agony lanced along the left one.

Good, he thought. At least it wasn’t the one he’d most likely be using.

Some distance away he could hear the thrashing of the Curruid coils as they battered the cliff, but there was another noise, much closer and nastier; a sound of crunching and sucking and, underneath that, the occasional whimper of pain and terror.

Slowly and carefully, Hellboy opened his eyes and turned his head. He found that he was lying on the floor of a rough cavern. Filthy straw was strew roughly about the place, but any attempt at comfort was spoiled by the smell of damp and decay and the sharp, broken ends of bones that jutted out here and there.

A girl lay in the straw near to Hellboy’s head, curled into a foetal position around her right hand. Two more lay close by in similar attitudes. Incredibly, they all seemed to be alive. As he scanned along the line, he saw Eileen at last and he shivered in horror.

The monster was holding her by the arm with one of her tiny fingers in its mouth. Blood oozed between its lips as sharp teeth rasped the flesh and a scrawny neck pulsed in regular swallows. Eyes like glowing coals were fixed on Hellboy.

Abandoning pretence, he rose to his feet. At once the monster set the girl down roughly and stood to face him.

“Lemme guess; Ugha-uh?”

The beast chuckled. “Come now, brother,” it said in a smooth and cultured accent. "Surely you realise that that’s only for the tourists.”

“Neat, so you’re a site of outstanding parapsychological significance as well as a child-butchering bastard.”

“Butchering? Do you see anyone butchered?”

Hellboy took a step forward, his fist clenched in rage. “I see three girls on the point of death from blood loss and a third just starting on her way,” he growled. “And I see the bones. I  _hate_  the little bones and I hate cannibals; even ones who went to Eton.”

“Harrow,” the beast corrected, “and I’m not a cannibal. Technically cannibals eat their own and I’m no more human than you are.”

“And who are you?” Hellboy demanded.

“Oh, dear me. You know how this works. No true names, no pack drill. I’ve only left you alive to offer you a choice.”

“Not interested.” Hellboy reached for his pistol and remembered that he’d left it in the dormitory. He hoped none of the younger girls found it.

“Oh, do hear me out,” the beast insisted. “You’ll like my offer. You see, I’m prepared to leave the nunnery, even to let these four wicked little creatures go, if you just do me one small favour.”

“Not sounding good so far.”

“But it’s  _so_  simple. Just kill Sister Heloise and hurl her body into the ocean, and call off your sea beast of course, and all four of them will be returned to you.”

Hellboy nodded slowly. “Yeah. That is simple. But you know what’s simpler?” He lunged forward and mashed his fist into the monster’s face.

“Yes,” the monster sighed; it seemed surprisingly untroubled by the impact of Hellboy’s mighty right hand. “Yes, that is simple.” It swung a powerful backhand that sent Hellboy toppling and tumbling across the room. “So, we’ll do it that way.”

The two mighty titans clashed in the centre of the room, iron-hard claws meeting stone-hard fist. After the first exchange, Hellboy was bleeding from a dozen cuts, but the monster’s flesh was like clay and however much he pummelled it, Hellboy could not make a lasting dent.

“Y’know; ‘civilised’ folks fall down when I hit ‘em.”

“One can take manners too far.” The monster ripped its claws across Hellboy’s chest. “And you have broken into my home and brought a great deal of noise pollution with you.”

Hellboy realised that the Curruid’s crashing and smashing was growing closer. “And you stole children from a convent.”

“They were wicked! Wicked children must be punished. Blame the one who gave them up to me.”

Hellboy threw himself at the monster but was knocked down. He landed badly and something sharp stabbed into his left hand. When he struggled up he found that the very tip of the bone head of the Gae Bolga had stabbed into the pad of his thumb. With some effort he ripped the barbed head free of his flesh, tearing a large chunk of meat out of his hand. Blood splattered across the chamber. Hellboy was about to throw the spearhead aside when another crash rocked the chamber.

An idea occurred to him. “Last chance,” he growled. “Give me the girls and get the hell away from the whole of humanity.”

The monster laughed. “You’re a funny guy. I may keep you as a pet once I tear out your hamstrings.”

“Hey, your choice. Just don’t say I didn’t give you a chance.” He charged at the monster. He slammed into it and it felt like hitting a brick wall, only brick walls usually broke when Hellboy hit them. The monster’s flesh parted easily enough before the thrust of the Gae Bolga’s tip however, and Hellboy felt the spearhead throb with power as it went in.

The monster grabbed him and tossed him aside with a roar of rage. “That actually hurt!” he snarled. He gripped the spearhead and tried to tug it from his side, but the barbs had spread deep into his flesh and it was lodged tight. “Oh, for that I’m going to kill you slowly, once I rip that piledriver off your wrist.”

“You’ll have a tough time getting at my wrist from a sea-serpent’s gullet!” Hellboy taunted.

“What?”

Hellboy turned and swept the four girls into his protective embrace, turning his back on the monster. He felt the claws tear through his tattered habit, but then there was nothing at his back but cold wind and stinging, salt spray, and the hideous cry of the beast as the mighty sea beast Curruid snatched him up in its jaws and swallowed him whole, taking the Coinchenn’s bone with him.

“What happened?” Eileen asked in a querulous voice. “Is it over?”

“No,” Hellboy replied. “It’s not.”

*

“Why did you become a nun?” he asked Sister Heloise.

Sister Heloise’s eyes widened in horror. “Demon!” she shrieked.

“A little,” he admitted. “Why did you become a nun?”

“She sent you!” the young nun with the old eyes accused.

Hellboy looked hard into her face.

“Who is  _she_?” Mother Elizabeth asked.

“Her mother,” Hellboy guessed.

Heloise gave a mirthless laugh.

“Your sister, then.”

The laugh died on her lips.

“Tell us, child,” Mother Elizabeth urged her. “Trust this creature who has returned our children to us.”

Sister Heloise sat in stoic silence while Hellboy paced up and down.

“Alright,” he said. “Maybe if I say a name, that might help.” He leaned close to Sister Heloise; she never even flinched until he said the name: “Rawhead and Bloody Bones.”

“How…?”

“’Rawhead and Bloody Bones, Drags naughty children from their homes. Takes them to his dirty den, And they are never seen again,’” Hellboy quoted. “Well, I saw that den and he made a big thing of the children he took being ‘wicked’. I should have got it sooner. Thumb-sucking? I’d already figured that we weren’t talking about any  _actual_  offences, but  _nursery crimes_ : the sort of things that nannies and, well, nuns rail against; no offence, Mother Elizabeth.”

“None taken,” the Abbess drawled.

“So, of course we’re looking for a nursery rhyme killer,” Hellboy concluded. “A Scissor Man or Spring-Heeled Jack; or in this case, Rawhead and Bloody Bones.”

“What about Sisters Mary Anne and Ruth?” Mother Elizabeth wondered. “And poor Kitty? They weren’t dragged off.”

“The nuns were too old to take, even if only just. As for Kitty… My guess is Sister Ruth knew the stories. If she called his name when he was squeezing through those bars, he might have got distracted and dropped…” He shook his head. “I hate the little bones.

“But what about you, Heloise? Why do  _you_  get to choose who is taken? And why does Rawhead and Bloody Bones want you dead?”

“What?” Now Sister Heloise paled with fear.

Hellboy leaned close again. “Why did you come here?”

Heloise hung her head. “Mother said that it was Agnes’s - my sister's - duty to hold back the Bloody Bones,” she whispered. “She said that she wanted me free of it. Free of the generations of fear.”

“Duty?” Mother Elizabeth asked.

Hellboy nodded. “Somehow, one of your ancestors managed to bind the monster. She set rules to stop him killing at random; he could only kill wicked children, or rather, children judged wicked. She probably set herself up as the judge of that and then got  _real_  charitable.”

“But why not just stop him killing altogether?” Mother Elizabeth asked.

“Gotta be a rule; that’s how this stuff works,” Hellboy explained. “Anyway, it’s handed down from mother to daughter, the right to be judge, until it reached your sister.”

“The heathen bitch!” Heloise hissed. “Always whispering to the darkness and working blasphemous charms in the moonlight.”

“Well, she’s lucky you didn’t inherit if that’s how you feel. Only of course… you did.”

“No!”

“Yes. Your sister died and then  _you_  inherited the duty.” He didn’t suggest that it might have been the other way around; she didn’t need that thought. “But you’re the last one, aren’t you? Your sister has no children?”

“A son.”

“Hmm. Only girl children, then. Well, when you die I reckon Rawhead and Bloody Bones goes free; at least without anyone to pass the duty on to.”

“No,” Heloise sobbed. “Please, no.”

Hellboy stood up tall. “Face it, Sister. Every girl you call wicked from now until doomsday, you doom her to a slow death in a bone-filled cave, and when you die…”

“But you said the thing was eaten?” Mother Elizabeth protested.

“You don’t kill that kind of evil. That’s why her ancestress bound him. Now it’s up to Heloise to keep the flame burning; to bear strong daughters to bear the burden after her.”

Heloise shook her head. “Please, no.”

“Your choice. After all, you don’t have to live in the world that comes after your death, when he busts loose and decides to make up for lost time.”

Heloise burst into tears.

Hellboy turned to Mother Elizabeth. “Make sure she does it,” he said. “And don’t be too soft on her; she was never soft on anyone else.”


End file.
